


Optical Illusion

by Aster_Writ



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (Comics)
Genre: (kinda), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aside from gay, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Canon Compliant, DC Comics Rebirth, First fic in YEARS, I have never tried to write Bruce Wayne before, M/M, New 52, Outdated Spoilers, References to New 52 and Rebirth Canon, Spoilers, it probably shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-26 00:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16209272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aster_Writ/pseuds/Aster_Writ
Summary: Bruce Wayne is Batman but even his reach doesn't extend that far into the stars. Ship is very very faint.





	Optical Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in a long long long time. I just felt like writing BatLantern and reading late New 52/ Early Rebirth Green Lantern/ Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps and Batman gave me this idea. There's references to Pre New 52 such as the time John called Bruce out on why he hates Hal and literally any time Guy Gardner and Bruce Wayne were within five metres of each other.

 

The Green Lantern Corps was missing.

 

Bruce didn’t know how long exactly, he wasn’t one of the League Members who worked heavily in space. As Jordan kept insisting to the rest of the League, the Watchtower barely counted as being in space as far as he was concerned. The Batman also did not have a history of a stable or even amicable working relationship with… well really any of them. Much like the Bats and odd bird of Gotham, the Lanterns were like family; a problem with one meant a problem with all. And there was no shortage of problems. How many times had Batman fought Green Lantern? Too many. And too many of them. Punching Jordon and Gardner, arguing with each of them and in turn Stewart due to his treatment of the two.

Not that those punches always went unanswered.

None of this changed the facts of the case. The Green Lantern Corps was missing, one of the major peacekeeping and crime-fighting forces in the galaxy had simply vanished. The only remaining Lanterns being the two rookies who were so painfully fresh they made Jordan when they first met look like a professional.

 

               When Bruce inquired regarding Jordan and if he was part of the entirety of the corps missing, Clark directed an inquisitive look at him. That was something comforting about Clark, he was always able to be read with relative ease. “Jordan is arguably the best at his job.” The look only deepened with a note of… worry. And apprehension.

“Bruce, Hal went rogue.”  
An attempt at a catch-up and an explanation followed. No there wasn’t any clear motive, yes they were sure it wasn’t Parallax, yes he apparently nearly killed Kilowog in his desertion. The information was laid out simply, things Bruce had missed or hadn’t known about the happenings of the universe outside of Gotham.

                “It doesn’t add up.” He told Clark

                “What doesn’t?”

                “Jordan would rather lose an arm than betray the Green Lantern Corps.”

                “The Corps seemed pretty sure.”

Not for the first time, a small Bruce wanted to hit his friend for how even with supervision he could miss some of the simplest of details before him. “Because Jordan’s never put his own reputation on the line for an organisation he believes in. Like the Justice League.”

Bruce didn’t stay to see the other shoe drop.

 

⭐⭐⭐

 

A few nights of patrolling Gotham and Bruce thought no further of Jordan and the missing Lanterns. That was out of even the Batman’s control. Wouldn’t Jordan have found that amusing—

It didn’t require much discipline to cut the thought short there. It wasn’t the first time. It just wasn’t the appropriate time for such a thought. Criminally insane who needed stopping, and people who needed saving. Only at the end of the night in an impromptu visit from Dick did the topic come back to the forefront.

 

                “He came looking for you, you know? When Gordon was in the Bat Bunny Suit. He wanted help with a case, in Coast City. A terrorist going by Sonar attacked a fair. He wanted information on where to find the guy. Day later a base was levelled and they had to cut the bodies out of the ground. Looked like their heads exploded.” Without the domino mask, Dick’s expression was easily as readable as ever.

                “Hn” was the intellectual response as Bruce took this and mentally added it to the internal case file he had started. When had he started a case file on the Green Lantern Corps absence? “Was Hal Jordan responsible?”  
  
Dick shrugged and slouched, a habit Alfred had never been able to train out of the circus boy, much to his chagrin at parties. “Maybe? I don’t think so though. He saved UN reps from an attack the next day. No casualties.”

              “And Hal never thought to call in regarding that part?” Bruce brushed the cowl back took the seat at the computer, deft keystrokes starting to bring up the information he was seeking. For what purpose was unclear, Hal’s personal case would not be related to that of the missing Corps.

             “When did Green Lantern become Hal, again?” There was a look in Dick’s eyes. And a quirk in his lips and his smile that hinted at amusement. Or perhaps smugness. Bruce remembered that expression on a younger Dick Grayson. Often on a case regarding the Catwoman. If Bruce cast his mind back he could recall the same expression and Dick asking ‘When did Catwoman become Selina?’

                “When the number of Green Lanterns made it impractical to refer to each of them with the same title.”

Quietly, Bruce pondered the same thing.

 

⭐⭐⭐

 

It was a night off from the Batman. And a night on for the Bruce Wayne, playboy billionaire. Not that there was much playboying these days, with age and fatherhood came the excuse of letting his reputation… mellow. Less inane dates that made Bruce almost prefer the bite of a bullet wound to the blandness of his dates. He’d grown too skilled at reading people, almost everyone within the Bruce Wayne’s circle lacked any form of hidden depths to explore. Or at least, ones he wanted to. Out in the permanent cold of a Gotham night, blanketed by darkness, Bruce turned his back on the life and light of a party he barely cared for. Too bright. Nothing like the true Gotham Bruce first met in Crime Alley when he was nine years old and that he grew to know like the lines on his palm.

Gotham was dark but the lights of a city were always bright and diluted all but the closest and brightest of stars into nothing more than a handful of pinpricks for a city were shadows always loomed large and tall. Bruce liked stars; the night sky was ever changing but a constant. Something he could navigate and assure himself by outside of his city. But that view could never be visible in the heart of Gotham without some kind of crisis. He gazed, standing out in the cold until the champagne flute almost felt warm in his hands.

 

A star he was watching particularly closely flickered green.  Bruce could almost pretend that was Oa or Mogo if he ignored the science. If he could ignore for a moment that green stars were nothing more than an optical illusion, that the light from the centre of the universe would never reach Earth, that even if the light reached Bruce it would come from a time so far beyond that of Hal’s.

But there was no Green Lantern Corps and Hal Jordan was a wanted man who couldn’t afford to shed light like that.

 

“Father, if you are going to permit the hosting of these parties in the manor and insist on my own attendance, you must also tolerate the masses wanting to socialise and consume our food.”

It said something of Bruce’s distraction that Damian had managed to sneak up on him. Even with his training, that was something his son could rarely accomplish. Or perhaps Damian had finally decided to listen to the words of wisdom from his other children. The later was a much more pleasant thought.

“Of course.” Bruce answered, a smile coming to his face as he pulled back on the mask of the evening.

Bruce Wayne had been told his eyes were piercing. Easily able to cut through and dissect a person as one might dissect a cadaver. Batman had found that one was less inclined to dishonesty than the other and thus made a much easier read. Damian’s eyes may have been a different colour but they held that same edge to them and Bruce could feel himself being read and scrutinised.

 

Silently, he hoped Hal Jordan would return to the light he belonged in.

 

⭐⭐⭐

 

The Green Lantern Corps was back. Stewart had sent a message through to the Justice League, telling of how he had assumed the mantle of Corps Leader after Jordan’s supposed betrayal. (Finally, they could rely on a steady flow of reports from the Green Lanterns) And the truth had been made clear with one slight piece of news.

Hal Jordan had made himself a scapegoat for the Green Lanterns. Hal Jordan had not gone over to darkness.

Hal Jordan was dead. Hal Jordan had undertaken a suicide mission that had finally gotten himself killed.

A blast of brilliant green light that had been felt through much of the universe but never made it to earth. A single piercing blow against the Sinestro Corps, Sinestro himself killed and Hal Jordan himself killed.

 

Perhaps in a few billion years, a flicker of the light that was Hal Jordan would reach the planet. Bruce Wayne would not live to see Hal Jordan again.

 

⭐⭐⭐

 

“C’mon, Spooky. Even you’re not lucky enough that I’d stay dead.”

 

Probably.


End file.
